Event schedules

You can configure the system to automatically delete, archive, or convert documents to records for a particular schema. These are sometimes referred to as Retention Policies or File Plan. You can also configure a notification for important events that are related to documents at some time the future. Event types include:

  • Delete — “Soft” deletes a document based on the event schedule date. The document can still be recovered in the “soft” deletion state. For more information on deleting documents, see Permanently Deleting Documents.
  • Archive — The document is moved to the Library Archive.
  • Convert to Record — The document in no longer editable but remains in the library. In other words, the document cannot be checked out and modified.
  • User defined – An email and/or document alert is sent to recipients to notify them of an important date or event. For user-defined events, you can set when the retention date begins and can align the date to a calendar year, fiscal year, month, quarter or none. 

The events are triggered based on the document creation date, last modified date, metadata last modified, or a custom metadata field. These triggers can then be additionally offset for a period measured in days, weeks, months, or years.

Events can be viewed in the Calendar by clicking Include Events. They can only be viewed by Senior Library Administrators or higher roles.

Email notifications are sent to Senior Library Administrators and higher roles. These notifications are configured to go out to selected users an assigned number of days before the event takes place.

In order to use the events features, the System Administrator must enable them. Library Administrators can then create and apply events to schemas.

Using custom metadata fields for retention policies

If you are using a custom date-type metadata field for an event schedule or retention policy, that metadata field must be made "read-only" in the document schema. This only applies to delete, archive, and convert to record event types.

The read-only metadata fields for custom dates restriction does not apply to User defined event types.

The read-only setting prevents users from changing dates that triggers mass deletion or status changes for all those documents in a given schema. However, any user with a role of Cabinet Administration or higher can modify the "read-only" date value in the metadata pane.

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Read only metadata field settings

You could also allow the modification of the read-only date value for when users (lower than Cabinet Administrators) are first adding the document to the system by enabling the permission "Allow the creator of a document to modify the initial value of read-only fields" which is set in the System Administrator area. After this initial date value change, the date is no longer editable by users with permissions lower than Cabinet Administrator.

A metadata field cannot be made Required and Read Only if the system permissions prohibit document creators from setting read-only fields.

Applying retention policies to document schemas

To apply an event schedule or retention policy to a schema, you need to do the following:

To enable event schedules

  1. In Web Client, go to Administration Panel > System Configuration > General.
  2. In the Event Schedule Settings area, select the following check boxes, if applicable:
  • Enable Convert to Record Events — Allows documents to be automatically converted to a record after a specified period of time.
  • Enable Archive Events — Allows documents to be automatically sent to the archive after a specified period of time.
  • Enable Delete Events — Allows documents to be automatically deleted after a specified period of time.
  • Enable User Defined Events – Allows email and/or document alerts to be sent to specific administrative groups or users to notify them of an important document date or event.

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    Enable event schedule settings
  1. Click Update.

To create an event schedule

  1. In the Web Client (WC), go to Administration Panel > Library Configuration > Events.
  • Alternatively, in the FileHold Desktop Application (FDA) go to Administration > Manage Schemas > Events.
  1. Click Add Event (WC) or add button (FDA).
  2. In the Add Event window, enter a Name.
  3. Enter a Description for the event up to 2000 characters. In the FDA, use CTRL+ENTER to add a new line in the description.
  4. Select one of the following types:
  • Archive — The document is moved to the Library Archive.
  • Delete — The document is deleted.
  • Convert to Record — The document is converted to a record. The document can no longer be edited or altered.
  • User Defined — Emails and/or triggers document alerts to notify specific users of an important document date or event.
  1. Select the date that the event is relative to:
  • Document created date
  • Document last modified date
  • Metadata last modified date
  • Custom metadata field. Select the metadata field name from the list.
  1. For user-defined events only, select the Align date to option:
  • None – Does not align to any start date. The Relative to date is used to trigger the event.
  • Month – The event date starts counting at the beginning of the next month.
  • Quarter – The event date starts counting beginning of the next quarter.
  • Calendar year – The event date starts counting beginning of the next calendar year.
  • Fiscal year – The start date of the fiscal year is set in the key “Event.FiscalYearStart” in the web config file in C:\Program Files\FileHold Systems\Application Server\LibraryManager. The default value is April 1. 

Use the align option when the retention requirements are not fixed to a specific date, but a grouping of dates. For example, a city's file plan calls for financial records to be deleted 7 years after the year they happened. A invoice from September 14, 2023 (fiscal 2023) should be deleted after April 1, 2030. If the align option was not used and the period was simply 7 years, the invoice from September 14, 2023 would be deleted after September 14, 2030.

  1. In the Period area, do one of the following:
  • For archive, delete, or convert to record events, enter the period that must pass before the event takes place in days, weeks, months, or years. For example, you want the document to be converted to a record 1 year after the document was created.
  • For notification events, enter the period of time before the event occurs. For example, a policy document expires after three years. If this is a recurring event, select the Recurring check box. For example, the policy expires every 3 years.
  1. Select the Notifications check box if you want to send emails to users to notify them of the event.
  2. Enter the number of days prior to the event that you want the email notification to be sent.
  • If this a User defined event, select the Email Message and/or Document Alert check boxes to receive these types of alerts. For example, the specified users receive an email and an alert 60 days before the expiry date.
  1. Click the ellipsis () button (WC) or Add (FDA) to select Recipients for the email notification. Any groups or users with the role Senior Library Administrator or higher can be added.
  • For a User defined event, select the Notify Document Owner check box to send an alert and/or email notification to the document owner.
  1. Click Save (WC) or OK (FDA).

To add an event schedule to a schema

  1. In the Web Client, go to Administration Panel > Library Configuration > Document Schemas > Schema Name > 7. Event Schedule.
  • Alternatively, in FDA go to Administration > Manage Schemas > Document Schemas > Schema Name > Events tab.
  1. Select the event that you want to occur to the documents assigned to this schema from the list:
  • Convert to a record
  • Archive
  • Delete
  • User Defined – Select the check box next to the user defined event. The number of events that can be selected is determined by a setting in a configuration file on the server.
  1. Click Save (WC) or OK (FDA).

Common questions about event processing

Q: What happens if event processing does not run one night. Do documents with events on that day get missed?

A: In most cases, no. This also means that if your event is based on a custom metadata field and a passed value is added after the fact, the event gets processed during the next lifecycle processing. The exception to this is for recurring user defined events. If two recurring user defined events are missed, then lifecycle processing is run, only the second recurrence will be triggered.

Q: For each document there can be more than one document version and for each document version there can be more than one metadata value. Does this mean there are multiple times events can happen on multiple versions? 

A: No. FileHold maintains a complete historical record for the document, but it only considered the latest version and latest metadata values when computing events during lifecycle processing. If you look at the version and metadata history you can see the lifecycle calculation as it would have been at the historical point in time.

Setting the number of user defined notifications allowed in a schema

The number of user defined events that can be enabled in a schema is determined in a configuration file in the server. The default is 5 events.

To change the allowable number of user defined events in a schema, open the web.config file in C:\Program Files\FileHold Systems\Application Server\LibraryManager. Edit the following setting:

<add key="UserDefinedEventsMaxNum" value="5" />

An option is available to initiate a workflow when when an event is triggered when you have the optional workflow extender installed in your system.